About Me

Saturday, March 5, 2016

THE MARK IN AMERICA #2, PAGE #2

THE
MARK IN AMERICA, ISSUE #2, PAGE 2

I
did this artwork 22 years ago, when I was in my early 30’s. I’m enjoying
looking at it again after all these years; it is quite good, in my opinion.

Except for panel #1, I find my ink treatment of the elevated train girders
curious, a bit busy and tenuous. I see what I was trying to do: give the
impression of the tracks moving toward and past camera at high speed, but I
didn’t have the inking chops to pull it off.

I also had in mind a pastiche of
the famous Bernie Krigstein subway panels from “Master Race”.Oh well, at least I was ambitious.

The
rest of the page is much better. I really like the spotting of blacks in the
other panel, especially on Helda, in panel 4 and Agent Pierce, in panel 6.

I
was struggling with how to ink a beautiful woman’s face. For the most part, the
inkers I was emulating shied away from it, and movie cinematography wasn’t much
help, as, especially in “classic” Hollywood fare from the 30s and 40s, they
tended to avoid putting shadows on the starlet’s faces. In panel 4 I kept it
simple, only shading the side of Helda’s face and her nose.

I got a bit braver
in panel 6 and got away with it, I think, because Agent Pierce wasn’t, strictly
speaking, supposed to be beautiful.

I also really like the drawing of The
Archon in panels 3 and 5. It reminds me of Dale Eaglesham’s artwork on the
Steve Rogers : Super Soldier mini-series.

This is page 2 for "The Mark" issue 2,
volume 2, otherwise known as "The Mark In America", published by Dark
Horse Comics in January 1994. Written by Mike Barr, Drawn by Brad Rader